He watched me go, eyes steady but not unkind.
I walked down the drive, past the mailbox and the silent woods toward my bike, feeling the weight of what I’d signed up for. It was heavier than anything I’d carried before, but it felt right. My dragon agreed. The best burden ever.
I threw a leg over my bike, started the engine, and drove off, heading to Chance’s house. It was move-in day."
The road to Chance’s mountain ranch home twisted and climbed, asphalt patched so many times it looked more scar than surface. The first mile, I gunned it, letting the throttle and the wind shred whatever was left of my composure. The dragon liked speed, wanted to take the curves fast and reckless, but I reined it in, kept the needle on the right side of stupid.
It had been years since I’d let myself just ride, nowhere urgent to be. It should have cleared my head, but every turn wound the tension tighter. The bike vibrated through my legs, grounding me in the present. I could smell the hint of rain coming over the ridge. None of it made a difference.
Three miles past the last mailbox, I pulled onto the shoulder and killed the engine. The silence landed heavy, louder than the roar had been. I dug the phone from my jacket and typed Krystal’s number. My hands shook but I ignored it.
She answered on the second ring, no greeting, just, "What’s wrong?"
I hadn’t expected that. "Nothing’s wrong," I said, and winced at how flat it came out.
A pause. "Okay. What do you want?"
I breathed in, slow and deliberate. "I want to meet him. Bryce. I want to—" I broke off and swallowed. "I want to start being in his life."
She said nothing for a moment. I heard the background noise of a TV, Bryce’s voice shouting about dinosaurs, then a door shutting.
Krystal came back on, more guarded. "I still haven’t told him. I don’t know what to tell him. How to tell him."
The truth was, I wanted to see the kid, but I didn’t want to wreck anything she’d built. "I’ll follow your lead," I said, softer. "In the meantime, we can start dating."
She exhaled, tired. "He deserves to know. But I have to tell him in a way that doesn’t make him think his whole world’s been a lie."
"Okay," I said. "You figure out how to tell him. I’ll wait."
Another silence. "This isn’t how I wanted it," she said, so low I almost missed it. "But we’ll make it work."
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. "Thank you."
"Hey, I could always blame it on my mother."
"Do you think the spell also made you forget who I was?"
She paused as if thinking about it. "Maybe, but I don't think so. I think I was just really freaking drunk that night. It sounds like something my mother would do. Let me go. We can talk more later."
"See you soon." We hung up, and I started the engine of the bike and continued to Chance’s house.
Chance’s place stood on a ridge above town, a low-slung ranch in the early stages of a full-scale resurrection. The driveway was blocked by a battered moving truck and a muscle car. I parked behind the latter and cut the engine.
Inside, the house buzzed with the kind of chaos only the Beck Clan could generate. Drake and Ashton manhandled a washer through the front door, and Chance, shirtless, scarred, and bellowing orders, steering the entire operation from a pile of drywall scraps.
Erin was there, too. She swept dust from corners, her hair tied up with a pencil and a length of packing twine.
I ducked past my brother, who grinned and shoulder-checked me into the wall. "You’re late," he said.
I grunted and aimed for the kitchen, where Aurelia and Skye were unboxing coffee mugs and sorting silverware into trays. The counters were lined with enough caffeine and sugar to keep an army upright for a month.
Aurelia saw me and pointed a knife in my direction. "Don’t even think about eating before you wash those claws."
"Some of us don’t have time to preen before manual labor," I said, but the banter felt hollow. I pumped soap from the noveltydispenser, shaped like a miniature fire hydrant, and tried to let the water rinse the tension from my hands.
Chance strode in, already glistening with sweat, and collapsed at the table. "We’re ahead of schedule," he said. "If we keep it up, we can get to the garage this afternoon. Zaden, you take wiring with Skye. She’s less likely to kill you than me."
I didn’t bother to protest.
